Adventures of Babysitting Toph
by write4cupcakes
Summary: Toph watches over a kid... in a manner of speaking.
1. Chapter 1

"Your little Princess Snowflake is hungry, Suki... how can you not know that?"

"Because I don't have freakish hearing like a freak," Suki mumbled under her breath. "And it's 'Kara', Toph. Her name is... you know what? Nevermind."

"No need to get defensive."

"Then maybe there's no need to put me on the defensive." It was in that strange, calm tone of voice she'd adopted since becoming a mother. It was outwardly soothing, for the baby's sake, but a tremendous amount of pent-up fury seethed underneath. She used it most often with Sokka.

"I just can't imagine why Katara left." Toph grinned wickedly. She had a bet with herself that she could bring all of Suki's anger to the surface in one spectacular explosion, and the clock was ticking. "Where's Sokka gotten off to?"

"Sleeping." Suki was using that tone again. Toph was getting close.

"Aw... So he let you rest while he was up all night tending to his precious little Snowflake? That's surprisingly considerate of him." Toph tried to suppress a smirk. She knew that the little princess had kept both Suki and Sokka awake... and more the former than the latter.

Toph was aware of a little gurgling as Suki laid her daughter down, but had no time to react before Suki had pounced on her. Toph was unsurprised to find that she could not use her bending or, for that matter, move. In Toph's opinion, Suki had been frankly abusing that damned trick that she'd learned.

"Toph," Suki growled. "I like you. I do. But this is hard enough. I can't do this on my own." Suki's mom voice broke for a moment, and Toph could do nothing but steep in her guilt. "If you're not planning on helping, I'd rather that you just left until you're ready to grow up."

With that, Suki picked up her daughter and walked away.

"You're just going to leave me here?" Toph called. She could still do that. "What if... What if it rains or something?"

"You'd get wet, I'd imagine," Suki called back cheerfully. Her daughter giggled.

* * *

"You take the princess, I'll take Toph," Sokka was saying. Toph overheard Suki give a weary consent. Sokka joined Toph outside as the baby's cries subsided.

"What the hell, Toph?" Sokka asked. Despite his daytime napping, he sounded pretty ragged.

"She left me."

"So? You got better. There was no need for the tantrum."

"It was an earthquake. Not a tantrum." Toph had been pretty proud of it, too. The old Sokka would have appreciated it, she thought.

"That was a tantrum in the form of an earthquake." Sokka sighed. "We have the one baby already, Toph... we really can't handle another one."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Toph jumped up angrily. She could feel the burn of oncoming tears, and furiously blinked them back. "It's not like I told you to go and have a stupid kid! Or to send Katara away so you could just stop being fun!"

"We're not kids anymore, Toph." He was using his dad voice. On her. Toph thought it was the most infuriating thing he could have possibly done, until he successfully dodged her punch. At least he knew better than to say anything more.

Toph had rarely felt more immature. And she knew, for her, that was significant. She would have apologized or made some attempt to explain herself, but she figured there was no need. Sokka understood her pretty well.

"Well," Sokka said after a few minutes, "I should probably go help Suki."

Toph sighed. "She's getting sick. A cold. Your daughter."

"What?" Sokka was using his mature dad voice again.

"It's her breathing... It doesn't sound serious, but she might be upset about it. Just thought you might want to know."

"Yeah... Thanks, Toph."

* * *

"Yeah, yeah, hold on a minute," Toph called to the little princess, who was, as yet, still silent. But Toph had heard all the indications that a post-nap, hunger-related crying fit was gearing up, and she'd just as soon avoid that. She preferred to keep the kid from crying whenever she could, which was most of the time. Toph had tried to convince Suki that it was only because she didn't like the noise, but Toph wasn't fooling anyone. She spoiled the girl nearly as bad as Sokka did.

"I don't see the harm," Toph confided in the kid. "I mean, as long as you don't make any unreasonable demands, it's no big deal. It's that simple. But if you start down that road and wind up a spoiled brat, well... that's on you. Understood?"

The girl giggled and sputtered some gibberish. Toph pretended she didn't understand.

"Sorry, Snowflake. Your mom's worried I'm messing with your development. You gotta use real words or I gotta act like I don't understand you."

The kid repeated herself.

"It isn't even your mom, really. I shouldn't blame her. It's your aunt. She's got a bunch of crazy ideas. One day I'll tell you about the time she found out your parents were letting a blind girl babysit her niece. You were there for parts of it, but I think a lot of the humor may have gone over your head at the time."

Possibly just to get her attention, the girl proudly emitted a semi-mangled version of Toph's name.

Toph turned to her seriously. "Hold up there, Princess. I'm gonna let that one slide, because you're still pretty new here, and you don't exactly know how things work. You don't seem to realize, but your first word absolutely will not be my name. You've got a couple choices... we'd all accept 'dada' or 'papa' or even 'Sokka'... but that's it. You'll have a lot of time for freestyling beyond that, but-and this is important-we gotta hear one of those first."

The gravity of Toph's tone seemed to sink in, and with a little training, Sokka's little Snowflake was performing admirably.

* * *

"What did you do to my daughter?" Suki asked, not for the first time. Toph shrugged.

"She's my daughter, too," Sokka replied defensively.

"No one's debating that."

"I don't see how you think I had anything to do with this," Toph said, almost as defensively. The other two were absorbed in watching their daughter, but Toph didn't need to ask what they were looking at. The princess's little solo tea parties were nothing that Toph was unfamiliar with. "I mean, if she were still playing in the mud and stuff, I'd happily accept responsibility. But this..."

"Yeah," Sokka agreed, "I mean, if I had my way, she'd be running around and hunting and fighting and stuff. I mean, really Suki, you're the only real girl here."

"And yet I wasn't the one who bought her the dresses. And the teas. And the tea sets. And the jewelry. And the makeup."

"Yeah, well... I got her a bunch of weapons, too," Sokka mumbled. "And it's not like Toph can say 'no' to her either."

"Don't drag me into this." Toph knew she was guilty of making gifts of a lot of the Bei Fong finer things her parents still gave her, and she knew where most of them were currently residing. But she had also sort of hoped no one would really notice.

"I don't think my daughter just randomly developed a liking for stuff covered in winged boars, Toph," Suki replied cooly.

Damn. "Yeah, well..." Toph couldn't think of any good way to defend herself, so she deflected. "Ask Sokka what he's got in his pocket."

"Oh, not cool, Toph. Not cool."

"Well, let's see it," Suki demanded.

Sokka pulled out the contents he had proudly shown off to Toph earlier, after making her promise not to tell Suki. But in Toph's defense, he had turned on her first.

"How many hair combs does she need?"

"At least three more, obviously," Toph said, grinning.

"You two..." Suki groaned.

"It's not like it's just us, Suki. That's new tea she's brewing."

"I give up," Suki groaned. Not for the first time.

* * *

"Sorry," the girl said. "I thought you were going to use your bending on my sword."

"Well, I wasn't. Since when did you learn that stupid trick, anyway?" Toph asked, as Snowflake propped her up against a rock.

"Since the last time I saw you, I guess. I like the sword and all, but I thought this would definitely be useful to master for combat against benders."

"You're lying. You just want to use it on your cousins."

"Well, that too. Don't tell Aunt Katara."

"Did you really have to paralyze me, too? That seems a bit like cheating."

"Well, I think bending my sword would be a bit like cheating," she responded cooly.

"I told you I wasn't going to bend your sword."

"Well, I didn't know that at the time, did I? Besides, isn't it always best to assume your opponent will do their worst?" She was always a sponge for that sort of comment.

"Yeah, yeah. But if you think I'm going to give you half a chance to do this ever again..."

"I won't."

"So can you fix me or something?" Toph asked after a long pause.

"I didn't master that part yet."

"Right. I'm sure you tried your hardest," Toph said sarcastically. "Wanna go get your mom or something?"

"I'd rather not leave you alone like this."

Toph sighed. "Thanks, kid."


	2. Chapter 2

"Okay, _who_ is it you want me to be?" Toph spat on the ground, savoring the subtle distaste in her companion's response. Despite being Sokka and Suki's daughter, Kara was terribly prissy, and Toph tremendously enjoyed mocking her.

"You're the Lady of the Mountains, the daughter of a minor Earth King. You were kidnapped as a baby, but one of your kidnappers took mercy on you..."

"And blinded me so I wouldn't have to look at their ugly faces?" Toph ventured, grinning.

"No! The blinding comes later. The kidnapper took mercy on you because even as a baby you were a great beauty, and he took you from his comrades. Alone in the mountains, he starved because he gave all his food and water to you..."

"That was foolish."

"But not before he reached a tribe of Air Nomads, who raised you among their people. But you were never truly one of them, as you learned the hard way when you were a child and tried to fly. _That's_ where you were blinded."

"So I'm an idiot."

"Anyway, you live in one of the towers of the Air Temple, and legends of the beautiful Lady of the Mountains spread all over the world. Eventually the stories reach the ears of the Great Earth King of Ba Sing Se, who desires you for his bride. He sends a convoy that includes his own sister, the young and brave Melancholy Princess. Because of a curse laid upon her by the Gods for a boast her mother made, misfortune seems to haunt the Princess, and no one has ever seen her smile.

"Sounds like a barrel of laughs, that one. Also sounds like a really bad idea to send someone like that on an important mission."

"Well, the King loved his little sister dearly, but he needed her out of the kingdom for a little bit..."

"Because of all the misfortune?" Toph guessed.

"Right. Anyway, the convoy meets with storms and bandits and all sorts of wretched things and eventually it's just the Melancholy Princess, alone in the mountains. She is determined to complete her quest, though, and eventually she is rescued by an Air Nomad and brought to the temple. She then leads the Lady of the Mountains back to Ba Sing Se, and that's what we're doing."

"Okay, Snowflake... you're gonna have to go over that one more time."

* * *

Toph had frequently indulged these games of Kara's. They'd started simply, being based on the stories her parents would tell her: Kara would be some brave Kyoshi Warrior and Toph would be some evil monster. The girl had a thirst for stories, though, and soon had exhausted every story her parents could tell her, including fictionalized versions of their own lives (Kara's favorites had included "Kyoshi vs. The Fire Monster" and "The Moon Princess and the Very Handsome and Charming Water Tribe Prince"). Soon they were forced to look elsewhere for material. Kara now had her own library of scrolls, full of histories and poems and epic stories. Toph had even contributed a few scrolls herself. Generally, and Toph claimed accidentally, they were of a more mature nature. It had seemed funny at first, but now all the girl was interested in were the romances; the more melodramatic, the better. So now when Toph was invited to play she didn't find herself cast as some fantastic and horrible monster, but rather some kind of noblewoman. They tended to be weepy princesses, and even when she got to play a villain, it was usually just some scheming Queen. To entertain herself, Toph had taken to working on her Katara and Mai impressions, respectively.

"So you're just going to lead me back to Ba Sing Se? And I just follow you?"

"Right, but it won't be easy! Remember, misfortune follows the Melancholy Princess so there's thieves and bandits and circus people and each time the two of them are just so clever and lovely and charming that they're able to escape and go on their way." Toph made no effort to conceal her disgust, and Kara was forced to add, however reluctantly, "And there can also be a Rock Demon or something that they fight. I guess."

"So this is an actual story, huh?"

"Yeah. In the end, there's the Exiled Prince that follows them and protects them because he fell in love with the Melancholy Princess at first sight, and he is wounded and as he dies, he declares his love, and the Princess is so moved by this that she smiles, and the sight is beautiful enough to bring him back to life and heal his wounds and remove her curse of misfortune and restore the Lady of the Mountain's eyesight. And then the Lady and the King fall in love at first sight, too." Kara must have seen Toph's face again, because she sighed and added,

"We can skip that part, I guess. It's not like we have a Prince or a King anyway."

Toph groaned. Her little Snowflake had, until now, grown up perfectly happy to have no one with whom to share her parents' and Toph's affections. But suddenly she'd gotten it into her head that what she really needed was for Toph to have had a son of an age comparable to Kara's so the two could fall in love and run off into one of Kara's melodramatic sunsets. She was getting worse than Toph's own parents regarding Toph's disinterest in finding a sunset of her own. Toph was pretty sure that what Kara needed was a friend her own age, but Princess Snowflake had been raised by her doting parents (and maybe Toph, a very little bit, but mostly her father) to believe that she was unique and special and infinitely better than anyone else. Quite surprisingly, other kids found her intolerable. Sokka's assurances that the girls were just jealous and the boys taunted her to express their admiration (and none of them were good enough for her anyway) didn't do much to help.

"Okay, lead the way, Melancholy Snowflake. Take poor, blind, gorgeous me to this brother of yours."

It always took some work for Kara to coax the correct, courtly dialogue out of Toph, but she usually managed, as long as they weren't in earshot of anyone else. She'd therefore learned to stick to stories that primarily allowed them to wander on their own. It was a chilly day on the shores of Kyoshi Island, so they were mercifully vacant. When Kara left Toph at their "camp" to gather food, which usually meant dashing home to put together a picnic, Toph busied herself by bending some sand into the shape of a ferocious monster, that she hoped the two of them could fight before sitting down to tea.

Kara returned shortly, noticeably upset. She didn't even properly notice Toph's sculpture. Though Toph was concerned, she waited until the picnic was set up and she was eating before asking what was wrong. The girl paused. "Am I a snob?"

Toph was quickly trying to think of ways to stall or avoid the question entirely. "What makes you ask?"

"I overheard some girls up in the village. Some of the warriors. They were making fun of me. I know dad would say they're just jealous, but it didn't sound like that." Kara paused again. "It's not just them. No one likes me."

"That's just because you think the things they care about are stupid and don't matter. And you've kind of made a point of telling them so."

"Well, they started it. And it's not that I think they're _stupid_, really, but what's so great about staying here in Kyoshi when there's a whole world out there? Why should I want to be stuck here defending this island from _no one_ when there's so much else out there to do? But they just stick around here dressed up some like some old dead Avatar and expect me to be impressed? I take it back, I do think they're stupid. But aren't they?"

"Well..." Toph tried to gather her thoughts on the issue. Having spent most of her own childhood in a world where people tended to not travel outside their own walls unless totally necessary, let alone into the other nations, an upbringing like little Princess Snowflake's was exceptionally odd. Even now, when people finally had the option to travel, very few of them did. Why would they? Not many of them had any reason to care how girls were wearing their hair in the Northern Water Tribe, what people were currently reading in the Fire Nation, if any of the Air Temples were fit for visitors yet, or what sort of tea was especially popular in Ba Sing Se at the moment. But, after the mandated combat training her parents insisted on, that was pretty much Kara's whole world. It was almost funny that a girl that open to all the culture the world could offer her was so ridiculously narrow minded when it came to interests and life goals that differed from her own. But, to Toph, that seemed like a parenting issue, and that was just one role Toph didn't feel like playing. She'd been young and stubborn herself and knew that sooner or later, Kara would hear what she needed to hear to snap out of it and grow up. In the meantime, "Of course they're stupid. They don't know any better. You're the one that's going places and they're just gonna be stuck here forever. Who cares if they don't like you?"

It might be different if Toph had any reason to expect that her little Snowflake would have to spend the rest of her life with these people, but she couldn't see that happening. With Kara's parents and extended family, it seemed obvious she was going to do bigger things. So she wasn't going to make a lot of friends along the way; no one's perfect.

They finished their game, for the time being, and headed back to the village before it got dark. "Okay, so when your parents ask what we've been up to all day, you're going to tell them...?"

"Combat training and rock sledding. Like always."

"Good girl."

* * *

_Finished for now, but I'm sure I'll be tempted to add more in the future, since I like playing with this dynamic. For more with Kara, I have a story called "Legacies" that I'll be adding to soon, but it can otherwise be found on my livejournal._


End file.
